


no hope for a happy ending

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Character Study, Depression, Drabble, Fitting In, Social Anxiety, Thoughts of Suicide, Transgender, ftm character, mental dysphoria, mentions of eating disorders, self hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 04:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5898604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How it feels to be transgender and trying to fit in,</p>
            </blockquote>





	no hope for a happy ending

She didn’t realise that her skin felt heavy and restrictive as lead until the day she went to school in the boy’s uniform.

 

Still, he’d been hoping that it’d be…easier. He’d somehow managed to convince himself that everything would be perfect as soon as he went to school in the proper uniform, that everyone would see him as a male and treat him so.

 

The last two were correct.

 

The first wasn’t.

 

The issue, however, wasn’t from the outside, as he might have expected. No, it came from within. Walking up to someone felt difficult as running through waist-deep molasses, opening his mouth more painful than hot coals pressed to his spine, _speaking_ and forming words more impossible than spring flowers surviving through a heavy winter.

 

So he hesitated in the trees’ dappled shadows alone, tugging on his tie and trying not to seem too desperate.

 

He tried to focus on lessons, the entire reason which he’d moved school, but found that his mind continued to stray, to his crushed wishes and social difficulty and his awful clawing desperation. His ties to life were slipping. It was all hopeless, so hopeless.

 

Sometimes he somehow managed to summon enough strength to speak to someone, to hang around a group and smile awkwardly, to listen uncomprehendingly to inside jokes and trail behind until he realised that he was unwanted and left.

 

In one class he at last made something of a friend, another boy who treated him exactly as he’d always dreamed, exactly like a mate and not a girlfriend.

 

But yet again, the problem did not come from the outside but the inside. When his new friend went for a high five he fumbled awkwardly and spent the next countless nights agonising over it, when he made a witty comment he replied with something hesitant and unfunny, when he asked a question he fumbled and got it wrong. Eventually he realised that he was simply trailing after his new friend as well, and left (no matter how happy he’d felt in those inbetween moments when he actually got something right). He walked home alone, listened to music instead of laughter, and read his old friends’ words on a screen instead of hearing them.

 

The loneliness, it was crushing. The experience was odd because he’d never much cared for people and often hated being around them. Days were spent in gentle ups where contentment settled over him at the teacher calling the correct name or someone called him ‘he,’ and freezing downs when he sat alone or in a crowd of girls where he thought that he would never, ever be able to act like a boy. Still he tried. Deepening his laugh and copying the other boys’ stances and calling others ‘mate’ and ‘dude.’ He did his best to copy his little brothers’ actions, the little brother who he had always envied for his confidence and easy good looks.

 

The pretence became so stifling that at night he found himself shooting up every five minutes, sure that he was sleeping in too feminine a position and he had to correct it, that others were watching him and studying.

 

He wished that he could wear his chest binder all of the time. When he took it off, his chest still felt crushed anyway.

 

At least the hate at his physical side was gone; now it was all focused inwards. Useless. Socially retarded. Stunted. Retarded. Fearful. Craven.

 

He didn’t precisely starve himself, he simply didn’t eat. He didn’t like others seeing such a thing, and besides he didn’t feel hungry (never mind that his insides were so, so empty).

 

Oddly enough, the only thing which would break him from his crushing moods was maths. Immersing himself in impartial numbers and step-by-step equations calmed him. There was no one to watch him, no one to judge him, the only rules he had to follow were those of mathematics.

 

Still he would never, ever allow himself, no matter how many times his eyes prickled and his heart stung.

 

He would not fall to that final humiliation, that which he had done so much when he was still she, would still cling to the last of his pride.

 

Every time he thought of school the next day, he was so, so terrified, because _he did not want to go back there_. That place where he had to watch his every move, second-guess himself constantly, fend off a stinging mist descending over his vision, sit alone in class and spend break alone as no one cared enough to seek him out.

 

Many times he wished that he could end it, simply so he would not have to return.

 

Simply so that he could be at peace.

 

Was it worth it?

 

Worth being how he was supposed to be?

 

He couldn’t talk to boys, because he didn’t know how to act around him.

 

He couldn’t talk to girls, because they never truly wanted to invite a boy into their midst.

 

So he just opened his laptop, and closed it again, surreptitiously watching a nearby group talk and laugh, and smile awkwardly up at older students when they came by to try and cajole him into joining a group.

 

Did they not know, not realise, just how useless he was? How absolutely, animalistically, terrified? How he was never able to let loose or relax or simply be himself, because himself did not include a _him_. He’d only ever known how to be a _her_ and now his hope that he’d learn otherwise was fading quickly.

 

One day on the bus home, he rested his hot forehead against the cool pane of glass and thought, _I don’t want this life_.

 

But he continued anyway, because he was a coward.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this was more a way of getting my feelings out than a real story. Still, I hope that you liked it and that it wasn't too depressing.


End file.
